Jewish community of Emden
The Jewish community in Emden existed for a period of around 400 years from its beginnings in the 16th century to its end on October 23, 1941. It was the oldest, largest and most important community in East Frisia and, as the seat of the regional rabbinate, the spiritual center of the Jews of East Frisia and the Landdrostei Osnabrück .
history
16th century to 1744
When exactly the first Jews settled in Emden cannot be determined. What is certain is that for the entire Middle Ages the presence of Jews cannot be proven either in Emden or on the East Frisian peninsula. They are mentioned for the first time in 1558 and 1571. From 1589, the city of Emden kept a register of protection money with the names of the Emden Jews. Uri ha-Levi is the first Emden Jew whose name has been passed down.
The municipality quickly developed into one of the largest in northern Germany and was the second largest in the province after Hanover. This is due to the relative autonomy that the city received after the Emden Revolution . This gave the Emden magistrate a free hand in the settlement of Jews and pursued a relatively liberal Jewish policy for the time. In addition, the port city was dependent on the Jewish coin changers, pawnbrokers and money lenders; Professions that Christians were denied and thus barely trained in the city.
The general letter of conduct issued by Count Ulrich II in 1645 allowed the Jews of East Frisia to live according to their own "Jewish order". In 1670 Princess Christine Charlotte had a general escort letter written which allowed Jews to hold services in their homes or in their own synagogues . He also stipulated that they were allowed to bury their dead according to Jewish custom.
The first synagogue in Emden has probably existed since the 16th century on Sandpfad No. 5, today's Bollwerkstraße. This was closed by the Emden magistrate due to dilapidation. In its place, the community built a large synagogue in 1836, which was expanded in 1910 and then had 320 places for men, a gallery for 250 women, a meeting room and the ritual bath. It is characteristic of the relationship between the Jews and the rest of the city's population that the opening ceremonies in 1836 and 1910 were attended by representatives of both the Christian communities in Emden and the municipal authorities. This synagogue was destroyed in the night of the Reichspogrom .
A Jewish cemetery is first mentioned in 1586 in front of the city gates in Tholenswehr . This cemetery was shared by the small East Frisian communities such as Weener, Bunde, Jemgum and Stapelmoor. In 1703 the community bought a site on Schoonhovenstraße, the former sand path and today's Bollwerkstraße. This cemetery served the community as a burial place until its end.
1744 to 1806
The liberal attitude towards the Jews changed when Prussia came to power in 1744. The autonomous policy of the city of Emden was ended. This led to a marked deterioration in the situation of the Jews; because the restrictive Prussian legislation against Jews now also applied in East Frisia. The declared aim of the Prussian administration was to reduce the proportion of Jews in East Frisia and thus also in Emden. The taxes to be paid by Jews were increased significantly, they were prohibited from owning real estate, and numerous restrictions and prohibitions were imposed on Jewish traders. The desired reduction in the proportion of the Jewish population was not achieved, but many Jews became impoverished, so that as early as 1765 two thirds of the Jewish population was living in the most miserable conditions. On the other hand, there was a small upper class, which mainly consisted of large merchants and bankers. Overall, the Jewish community in Emden was one of the poorer Jewish communities in Germany.
Anti-Semitic remarks and actions were rare until the early 1930s. Only the Calvinist Church protested against the tolerance of the Jews, which was not heard by either the magistrate or the sovereign. The first major riots against Jews occurred in 1761 and 1762 in connection with the turmoil of the Seven Years' War . Several houses were looted because the population blamed Jews for the poor supply situation. Up to the time of the National Socialist seizure of power, however, only a few attacks against Jews in Emden can be documented.
1806 to 1901
After the battle of Jena and Auerstedt , East Frisia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Holland and thus into the French sphere of influence. In 1810 the " Ems-Oriental " ("Osterems") department became part of the French Empire. For the Jews this meant a significant improvement in their situation. In two decrees of June 4, 1808 and January 23, 1811 they were granted civil rights and full equality.
After the defeat of Napoleon and the collapse of his empire, East Friesland came under Prussian rule again in the years 1813 to 1815. As a result, the Prussian Jewish edict of March 11, 1812 also came into force in East Frisia. Jews, until then regarded as “servants of Jews” in the Prussian state, were now fully entitled citizens, provided they were prepared to accept permanent family names and submit to military service. After the Congress of Vienna (1814/15), Prussia had to cede East Frisia to the Kingdom of Hanover . Due to a lack of instructions from the new rulers, the legal situation for Jews was now extremely confused. In particular, the administration initially acted in accordance with Prussian law, taking into account the Jewish edict. In 1829, the Aurich Landdrostei in Hanover advocated a Jewish-friendly interpretation, but received instructions to the contrary. In 1819 the guilds were reintroduced, which largely excluded Jews from the craft. In contrast to the rest of the Kingdom of Hanover, the protective Jewish status was not reintroduced in East Frisia. Since 1824 the “Oberlandespolizeiliche permit” has taken its place. Without this, Jews in Emden could no longer settle down and marry. Jews were also prohibited from voting and assuming municipal offices. Permission to settle could only be transferred to a son, and then only to a single son, if the father had given up his business or died. In 1827 Emden became the seat of the state rabbinate. In 1835 the old synagogue partially collapsed during the Sabbath service and was closed by the authorities. Thanks to donations from Jewish citizens, a new building was built in its place, which was inaugurated on August 19, 1836 by the regional rabbi Abraham Heymann Löwenstamm.
Like the Prussians before, the Hanoverians tried to reduce the number of Jews in East Frisia. In 1828 the Jewish community in Emden still had 802 members, in 1842 there were only 691. This is probably mainly due to the poverty that had spread among the East Frisian Jews. The Emden magistrate declared in 1828 that “almost all of the local Jews languish in the greatest poverty. This can only be seen as a consequence of the restrictions to which they are subject. "
After the annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover by Prussia in 1866, Emden became Prussian again and the Jewish edict was applied again. By 1870, new laws finally brought civil rights for Jews in East Frisia as well. The last (legal) discrimination was reduced by the end of the First World War . Now the Emden Jews could be elected to the city council or become members of an association. Jews became city councilors or members of the association “Maatschappy to't Nut van't Generaleen” (“Society for the benefit of the general public”) and the Emden Chamber of Commerce. The chairman of the Jewish community, Jacob Pels, even became a member of the council of citizens in 1890.
Land rabbis
After the Napoleonic annexation of northern Germany, the Consistoire Emden was set up for the Départements de l'Ems-Supérieur and Ems Oriental based on the French model . A Chief Rabbi (grand-rabbin) supervised the communities in Konsistorialbezirk. He officiated as a regional rabbi from 1827. In 1842 the Kingdom of Hanover established land rabbinates in Emden, Hanover , Hildesheim and Stade. The Land Rabbinate Emden included the Landdrosteien Aurich and Osnabrück . In 1939 the Nazi authorities lifted the land rabbinates.
- 1812–1839: Abraham Heymann Löwenstamm (1775–1839), from 1812 Grand Rabbi of the Consistoires Emden, from 1827 State Rabbi for East Frisia
- 1839–1841: vacancy
- 1841–1847: Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888), land rabbi of Emden
- 1848–1850: Dr. Josef Isaacson (1811–1885), deputy country rabbi
- 1850-1852: vacancy
- 1852–1870: Dr. Hermann Hamburger (approx. 1810–1870), land rabbi of Emden
- 1871–1873: Dr. Philipp Kroner (1833–1907), city rabbi of Emden, interim as land rabbi
- 1875–1892: Dr. Peter Buchholz (1837–1892), elected in 1873, then introduced in 1875 as Land Rabbi of Emden
- 1892-1894: vacancy
- 1894–1911: Dr. Jonas Zvi Hermann Löb (1849–1911), land rabbi of Emden
- 1911: Dr. Abraham Lewinsky (1866–1941), land rabbi of Hildesheim in deputy
- 1911 / 13–1921: Dr. Moses Jehuda Hoffmann (1873–1958), land rabbi of Emden
- 1922–1939: Dr. Samuel Blum (1883–1951), city and country rabbi of Emden
Zionism
Zionism first appeared in Emden at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1901 35 Jewish citizens founded the local group "Lemaan Zion" of the Zionist Association for Germany. As in the rest of the empire, this movement found favor with only a very small fraction of the Jewish population. The community leadership around land rabbi Dr. Jonas Zvi Hermann Löb and teacher Selig were skeptical or even negative about Zionism and described the supporters of Zionism in community meetings as “ journeymen without a fatherland ”.
Weimar Republic
In 1924 the Jewish doctor Max Sternberg ran for the FFF party, the partisan arm of the free economy movement Silvio Gesells . He was elected to the Citizens Board on May 4th with 601 votes (5.2%). There he belonged to the opposition with four representatives of the Communist Party , while the majority faction of the civil association formed a government coalition together with the five SPD members . In addition to his political commitment, Max Sternberg was also active in the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith and from 1924 headed its local Emder group.
In the 1920s, Pastor Ludwig Münchmeyer from Borkum incited the audience with anti-Semitic hate speech; other agitators from the working class or the trades met with a good response, especially in the larger towns, due to their professional and social proximity to the proletariat. From now on, anti-Semitic incidents increased, so shortly before Christmas 1927 the Völkische Freiheitsbewegung distributed leaflets that were clearly directed against Jewish business people with a clearly racist background. From 1928 there was a local branch of the NSDAP in Emden, which was not represented in the Emden magistrate until March 1933.
1933 to 1938
After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the age of persecution began for the Jews in Emden as well . Two months after the seizure of power and four days earlier than in other parts of the German Reich , the boycott of Jewish businesses began in East Friesland . On March 28, 1933, the SA posted itself in front of the shops. During the night, 26 shop windows were thrown in, which the National Socialists later wanted to blame the Communists on. The boycott was officially ended after a few days, but the discrimination continued through propaganda, ordinances and laws. This caused many of the local Jews to flee. Among the Jews who had fled in 1933 was Max Windmüller , who later joined the resistance of the Westerweel group in the Netherlands under his code name Cor and saved many Jewish children and young people.
In 1935, customers of Jewish shops were photographed and denounced. As a result, the economic situation of the business owners deteriorated, so that one business after the other had to be given up and in this way " Aryanized ". The city bathing establishment at the Kesselschleuse denied entry to Jews in the same year because the population allegedly felt harassed. Nevertheless, only a minority of East Frisian Jews saw a way out in selling their property and emigrating. The Zionists, who held regular events, could not change this either. Most of the East Frisian Jews still wavered between hope and despair. Exact and reliable statistics on emigration and emigration are not possible due to the sometimes contradicting sources.
According to newspaper reports, 130 people emigrated from 1933 to 1938, 50 moved to other cities. According to another source, 430 Jews were still living in the city on September 1, 1938, which would mean that around a quarter of the Jewish population had left Emden between 1933 and autumn 1938 - before the Reichspogromnacht.
The Jewish community in Emden felt compelled to make arrangements for housing the older community members. In addition to the old people's home in Schoonhovenstraße, an extension was built to the orphanage in Claas-Tholen-Straße.
Reichspogromnacht 1938
On the night of November 9th to 10th, 1938, riots against the Jews, ordered by the Reich leadership of the National Socialists, took place in Emden, which were later referred to as the November 1938 pogroms . Bernhard Horstmann, the 26-year-old district leader, was instructed by telephone from the Gauleitung in Oldenburg at 10:30 p.m. that “retaliatory measures” would be carried out against the Jews throughout Germany that night. At 1 a.m. all synagogues in the German Reich were to burn.
At 11:30 p.m. Horstmann instructed his deputy and district office manager Neeland to organize the arson in the synagogue. The SS then brought fire agents into the church. At the same time, the Emden fire brigade was informed about the planned action. It should not intervene and should limit itself to preventing the flames from spreading to surrounding houses. SA troops prepared to arrest all Emden Jews. At around 1 a.m., forces from the SA and SS went to the synagogue. These were not uniformed in order to conceal the planned arson and the identity of the perpetrators. The whole action should look like a spontaneous outbreak of violence by the German population in revenge for the murder of the legation secretary Ernst Eduard vom Rath by the Jew Herschel Grynszpan . Shortly afterwards Horstmann arrived and gave the order to set fire to the synagogue. A big explosion followed in the synagogue, but the fire did not start. Only after another 20 liters of gasoline had been brought into the synagogue did a firestorm break out, which completely destroyed the synagogue.
The Jews of the city had been mistreated by the SA since midnight and rounded up in the school yard of the Neutor School. At the same time, shop windows, shop fittings and furniture of Jewish facilities and apartments were smashed in the city. At least one Jew was so badly wounded by a shot in the back that he later succumbed to his injuries. In the early morning the SA rounded up about 300 Jews in the school yard. There they were harassed for hours under the direction of SA Storm Leader Bennmann by letting them march to exhaustion and sing hiking songs. Bennmann threatened to shoot them if they did not obey his orders.
On the morning of November 10th, the women, children and elderly men were released. The Jews who were considered fit for work, about 60 in number, were driven by the SA to the boat harbor on the Wall, where they were supposed to carry out dredging work. The way there led the men past the burned-out synagogue. There the SA forced a Jew to accuse himself of setting fire to the synagogue. A provisional warehouse was set up in the gymnasium of the Neutorschule. There, too, the Emden Jews were subjected to harassment by the SA. In the early morning hours of November 11, the SA dissolved this camp and drove the Jews to the train station under the guard of the SS and Gestapo , from where they were deported to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp .
Exodus, displacement and murder
The Jewish community in Emden quickly dissolved after the November pogroms. The land rabbi Dr. Samuel Blum and the last remaining Jewish doctor emigrated to Palestine. In the course of 1938 the Aryanization of Jewish properties was completed. At the end of January 1940, an initiative by East Frisian district administrators and the municipal authorities of the city of Emden led to an instruction from the Gestapo control center in Wilhelmshaven that Jews were to leave East Frisia by April 1, 1940. The East Frisian Jews had to look for other apartments within the German Reich (with the exception of Hamburg and the areas on the left bank of the Rhine). In the fall of 1941 Emden was one of the first twelve towns in the kingdom, from which rich German Jews to the East deported were. On October 22nd, 122 Emden Jews were deported to the Łódź ghetto via the Berlin stopover . 164 Jews from the Jewish retirement home in Emden were temporarily transferred to the Jewish retirement home in Varel in October 1941 and deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on July 23, 1942 via Bremen and Hanover.
The area of responsibility of the state police control center in Wilhelmshaven (Oldenburg and East Friesland) was then declared to be " Jew-free " and was de facto. Only a few Jews who lived in so-called mixed marriages stayed in Emden during the war. At least 465 Emden Jews perished in the Holocaust. She is remembered today with a memorial stone in the Jewish cemetery.
post war period
As part of Operation Oasis , from November 2 to 5, 1947, by order of the British occupation government, 2,342 Exodus refugees were transported from the Pöppendorf camp to the former barracks on Auricher Strasse in Emden by train. With the independence and establishment of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, all restrictions on Jews ceased to exist. Nevertheless, it took a long time before the Exodus passengers were able to travel to the country that had been burdened by the War of Independence.
13 Jews returned to Emden by 1947. In 1949 they founded a new synagogue community as an association. This dissolved in 1984 because it only consisted of one member. The last burial in the Jewish cemetery took place in 2006. Today hardly any people of Jewish faith live in Emden, so the religion is not practiced in public. The Emden Jews are part of the Jewish community in Oldenburg.
Community development
The Jewish community in Emden was one of the largest in northern Germany. After Hanover, it was the second largest in the province. The highest proportion of the total population was reached in 1771 with 6%, in absolute numbers the peak was reached in 1905 with 809 members.
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Memorials
- Memorial stone on the site of the old cemetery in Tholenswehr.
- Memorial stone for the burned down synagogue in Bollwerkstrasse.
- Memorial with the names of 465 murdered Jews from Emden in the cemetery on Bollwerkstrasse.
- Model of the Emden Synagogue, in the East Frisian State Museum since 1994.
- The city of Emden renamed the former Webergildestrasse on November 8, 1998 to Max-Windmüller-Strasse.
See also
literature
- Marianne Claudi, Reinhard Claudi: That we have lost. Life stories of Emden Jews. With a story of the Jewish community in Emden's Wolf Valk. Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-31-1 .
- Jan Lokers : The Jews in Emden 1530–1806. A social and economic historical study on the history of the Jews in Northern Germany from the end of the Middle Ages to the emancipation legislation. Aurich 1990, ISBN 3-925365-50-8 .
- Herbert Reyer, Martin Tielke (ed.): Frisia Judaica. Contributions to the history of the Jews in East Frisia. Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-40-0 .
- Max Markreich : The Memor Book of the Jewish Community in Emden. In: Yearbook for the Jewish communities of Schleswig-Holstein 5. 1933/1934, p. 29 f.
- The end of the Jews in East Frisia. Catalog for the exhibition of the East Frisian landscape on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Verlag Ostfriesische Landschaft, Aurich 1988, ISBN 3-925365-41-9 .
- Jan Lokers: Emden. In: Herbert Obenaus (Ed. In collaboration with David Bankier and Daniel Fraenkel): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen . Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-753-5 , pp. 533-569.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Wolbert GC Smidt: Uri ben Joseph (Feibisch Emden) Halewi. (PDF) In: Biographisches Lexikon für Ostfriesland (BLO IV, Aurich 2007, pp. 175 - 177). Retrieved December 24, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Herbert Obenaus (Ed.): Historical manual of the Jewish communities in Lower Saxony and Bremen ISBN 3-89244-753-5
- ↑ FFF stands for free land , free money and fixed currency.
- ↑ Marianne Claudi, Reinhard Claudi: Golden times and other times. Emden - city in East Frisia . Attachment volume Zeittafel, texts, documents, maps , Gerhard-Verlag Emden o. J. [1982], p. 33: Table of the elections for citizens in Emden 1919–1933 .
- ^ Allemannia Judaica: History of the Jewish community in Emden ; accessed on April 25, 2017.
- ↑ Shoa.de: The German "Ghetto Litzmannstadt" in Lódz, Poland
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Coordinates: 53 ° 22 ′ 8.4 " N , 7 ° 12 ′ 38.3" E